ECHO 11/1/06

London – siren city – the temptation and the outcome – for example, the vocal retribution of a drug dealer whom I ignore as he signals and nods to me persistently upon the street becoming a curse and tirade of abuse as I pass by ignoring him, he snaps his lips – an old house I once lived in is merely a memory without much sentiment; now they are in the process of repainting it, a step ladder in the window, and the ivy over the front now brown, dry, desiccated; the odd plastic rainbow over Brixton High Street, pseudo-religious undertones, semi-deco or else trashy ‘50s – an old face briefly met in a maze of corridors full of missionaries – a strange angle of spit and vomit on the floor of a bus – the sweats and the lack of space returning – the sudden shouts turning heads, the sirens racing, the total sensory assault that is SW9 – make or break rhythm; 20,000 faces in a moment – the pall of skunk weed smoked on high streets no longer clandestine but arterial – every step overcrowded, immediately replaced by another’s step, consumed and filled in perpetuity – organisms alive but diseased with unseen enemies, germs, polluted, throats dry and stiff in one
day -